(*) MASTER NOTES: The Closer-Go-Round
May 22 2015
Can anybody find a way to get me off the closer-go-round? Please?
When I was a kid, I always hated the merry-go-round. The horses always looked to me like the rode straight out of the netherworld—I don’t mean Holland, but the place we used to call “H-E-double hockey sticks” when I was in Catholic school.
That calliope music drove me crazy, and the ride itself was simultaneously boring—we’re going around in circles, big deal—and nauseating, with the up-and-down motion of Satan’s nags.
I haven’t been on a merry-go-round for years, but since I started playing fantasy baseball, I’ve been nauseated by repeatedly riding the “closer-go-round,” the horrible experience of chasing “closers” only to have them lose their jobs to other guys, who lose their jobs to other guys, and around we go.
After years in a AL-only league, I started Tout Wars in 2012, where my strategy was to punt—not punt saves, but punt closers. My home-league experience had convinced me that I could cobble together enough saves by jumping on and off the free-agent closer-go-round, focusing on being a week early to grab that week’s hotly rumored (the rumors are always hot) closer-to-be for a FAAB bid of $1 or even $0.
For some reason, I immediately befouled my own strategy. Just before the auction, I checked online and saw a hot rumor that the Reds would be giving their closer job to lefthander Sean Marshall. I thought I might get him for a buck. Apparently I wasn’t the only one in on this hot rumor—I got Marshall all right, but paid $12, or about $11 too much.
Marshall picked up only nine saves that year, and was pretty much off the closer-go-round by June. He was eventually replaced by another lefty, by the name of Chapman. Maybe you’ve heard of him and his fancy-dancy 100-mph fastball. A year or so later, Chapman was an “established closer” right up until shortly before Opening Day, when he got hit in the face by a line drive and missed six weeks of the season.
That same year, I also got 37 saves combined, snabbing both Ernesto Frieri and Addison Reed from the closer-go-round just before they got the closer roles. By the end of the year, I had 66 saves and seven points in the category. Success!
The next season, I had more discipline at the auction, successfully avoiding “established closers” entirely. During the year, I landed in-season replacement closers Mark Melancon and Joaquín Benoit in the closer-go-round. I finished with 47 saves—not too shabby for an auction investment of $0. Unfortunately, 47 saves that year was a last-place finish in the category. The operation was a success, except the patient died.
Last season, I resolved to try a new horse on the closer-go-round. Or, rather, three horses. I decided to buy three solid, established closers for a total of $36 or less. Again, I succeeded. I got the previous season’s MLB saves leader and two other established closers.
And they delivered… 22 saves. That previous season leader was Jim Johnson, whose explosion that year was the stuff of legend, and left a bigger crater than the meteorite impact site in Sudbury, Ontario. He got me two saves.
The other two? Glad you asked. Casey Janssen of the Blue Jays celebrated joining my team by getting a sore back and missing two months. Bobby Parnell of the Mets did him one better: He blew his Opening Day save opportunity and then had Tommy John surgery.
I rode the closer-go-round that season so much that I was on a first-name basis with the horses, and my name was on a plaque on one of those little benches. I got five saves apiece from Sergio Santos and Matt Lindstrom, before they lost their roles. Weirdly, while 47 saves got me a one point the previous year, 32 saves got me four points in this year.
My strategy this year was to go back to punting—the category, not just closers. So don’t ask me why I jumped in on Sean Doolittle, paying the same $12 I paid for Sean Marshall at my first Tout draft. Sudden thought: Could it be something about the name “Sean”?
Anyway, I’m not sure what to think any more—except that I know there’s no such thing as a sure thing in the closer role. This year, my Tout competitors invested more than $20 in sure thing closers like Aroldis Chapman and Greg Holland, who have just seven saves each. That’s the same save count as Wade Davis, who cost $2.
Other owners have 13 saves each from Andrew Miller and Joakim Soria, who likewise cost $2 each.
Meanwhile, already this year, the closer-go-round is spinning like the one at the end of Strangers on a Train. In just the first quarter of the year:
- In Miami, Steve Cishek was awful
- In Tampa, Jake McGee was hurt
- In Atlanta, Craig Kimbrel was traded
- In San Diego, Joaquín Benoit was replaced by Kimbrel
- In Colorado, LaTroy Hawkins was awful
- Also in Colorado, Adam Ottavino took Hawkins’ job, then he had Tommy John
- In LA, Kenley Jansen was hurt
- In Texas, Neftali Feliz was awful
- In Arizona, Addison Reed was awful
- In Detroit, Joe Nathan was briefly awful, then hurt
- In New York, Dellin Bettances was too valuable in the eighth
- And in Toronto, Brett Cecil was awful, got replaced by Miguel Castro, then Castro was awful and Cecil got the job back!
And so it goes.
The long and short of it is that there’s no sensible way to play the closer-go-round. So for the love of Pete, will somebody stop it? I want to get the H-E-double hockey sticks off.
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